Time for Bed

The Justice Department is still unclear on how it happened, but somehow as many as 48 documents that officials now say should have been classified, were inadvertently turned over to terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui as part of the discovery process in his upcoming trial. According to court records released Thursday, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who is presiding over the case, called the ‘mistake’ a grave security breach.

And you wonder why I don’t trust the Feds with an entire department devoted to homeland security?

I saw that last night on the NY Times and it just knocked me speechless. I had intended to blog for a couple hours, but that just pissed me off so much I went and watched mindless drivel on the television.

Go check out what Scott Ott had to say. I think he is the funniest man in the Blogosphere.

You know Stephen, I agree that the feds are generally incompetent. But is that an argument that there should not even be a Dept of Homeland Security? Cheap shots are fun, I know I take them myself, but they are also easy.

The proposed Dept. of Homeland Security does not create any new agencies. It redefines the management of existing agencies such as the INS and Coast Guard. The likely improvement in efficiency is probably a couple of percentage points at best, and equally probably negative.

And it doesn’t include the FBI. What the hell good is a police agency without an intelligence service?

I don’t think HoSec is a terrible idea. I think it’s a pointless idea, and a terrible waste of time and attention when there are urgent matters before us. Most of the fixes needed in homeland defense require acts of Congress anyway, not bureaucratic reshuffling.

You want to keep our enemies out?
– Cancel the Visa Waiver Program.
– Ban nonimmigrant visas from enemy countries completely — most of the hijackers were here as tourists or students, not immigrants.
– Profile, profile, profile.
– Fire the entire INS down to the ground, start over, and fire anyone who doesn’t produce work in a timely and accurate fashion.
– Reverse the usual law-enforcement equation when dealing with noncitizens: guilty until proven innocent.

The harm done to our liberties by taking a skeptical view of noncitizens is real, but far less than doing so to citizens. HoSec blurs a distinction between the two that should be sharpened.